The La Palma City Council is asking voters whether councilmember term limits should be changed to allow for longer stints of service.
The ballot measure to be put before voters in November would change the city’s election laws, which currently limit councilmembers to two consecutive four-year terms, and requires a four-year cooling off period before running for council again.
The measure, if approved by La Palma voters, would allow councilmembers to serve three consecutive terms in office, with the same four-year out-of-office period required to reset the term limit.
Current councilmembers would start with a fresh set of three terms, beginning with the November election, if voters approve the measure.
La Palma is transitioning to a by-district election system in November, meaning councilmembers will be chosen by the voters of a geographic district that they must live in, and not by voters in the city at large. Districts 1, 3 and 5 will appear on the November ballot.
Mayor Marshall Goodman, who initiated the proposal for changing term limits alongside Councilmember Nitesh Patel, said he hoped the change would address what he called La Palma’s “shrinking candidate pools,” instead providing voters options for “continuity of leadership.” Goodman referenced his 2016 campaign, where he ran unopposed for La Palma City Council.
“When you have term limits, you are actually losing the ability for constituents to vote for someone,” he said.
Councilmember Janet Conklin was the sole vote against the measure when it was approved in June by the council.
“Let the constituents decide,” she said, “but we need to give our constituents options.”
Conklin said she hoped the council would model the initiative after Cerritos — a neighboring city — which placed four options before voters in 2022: remove all term limit provisions; set a two-term, lifetime limit; set a three-term, lifetime limit; or to make no change to term limit provisions.
Cerritos now has a lifetime limit of two four-year terms, changing from the previous limit of two consecutive four-year terms and a two-year cool-off period.
Term limit initiatives have been common among local ballot measures in recent elections. In the past 10 years, there were 10 ballot measures among Orange County cities concerning term limits, with the most recent in Aliso Viejo in 2022.
Goodman and Patel also facilitated discussions about increasing term limits in 2019, but the council decided to table the matter then after facing backlash from residents.
“They want to stay in office,” Robert Carruth, a La Palma resident of 32 years, said. “You can’t sit on the dais and say you trust voters and then limit their options to the one you want and benefit from the most.”
Three of five La Palma councilmembers’ terms expire in December, but Goodman said it was irrelevant to the measure.
“Even if there was no term limit,” he said, “the voters can choose whether they want us to stay.”
